


Light Sleeper

by SciFiDVM



Series: In Your Dreams [3]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen, My head canon, Pottsboro to Willoughby, The Road Trip Continues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-07 00:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13422393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SciFiDVM/pseuds/SciFiDVM
Summary: Charlie and Bass continue their first trip to Willoughby and find some common ground on the most unexpected of topics.





	Light Sleeper

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still going with these. There are probably 2 or 3 more (depends if I combine or separate one story idea). These stories cover what I have always presumed happened on that trip. That is the basis for all my Charloe fic, so you could consider this series as a prequel to anything else I've written. I go back and forth as to whether something happened and they slept together during that time (the "He didn't do anything to me!" line in the show just always sounded waaaay too guilty to me). There are a couple ways I could totally imagine it happening realistically (most involve hate sex or alcohol and sharing issues) and staying in canon, but I'm not sure I'm gonna include any of that. I think it's actually more meaningful for these two particular characters to start to trust somebody than it would be for them to have hateful or meaningless sex with each other at this point. But we'll see how I feel as I write more. Maybe there will be an optional chapter 4B or something that includes them getting it on. I make no promises though.

Charlie wasn’t sure why she’d done it, but the bruised wrist and the lump on the back of her skull were more than enough to keep her compassion in check from now on. No good deed goes unpunished, right?

The day had been generally unremarkable. They’d spoken only when needed, and they’d encountered no complications on the road. After covering a respectable number of miles during the day, they’d found a good spot to camp for the night. It still seemed like rain was coming, but the skies hadn't turned on them yet. In the pre-dawn hours while Charlie had been keeping watch over their camp, Monroe had started twitching and gasping in his sleep. Remembering what he’d so casually confided to her the night before, Charlie had intended to do him a kindness by waking him from the nightmare of perpetually watching someone he cared about die. Calling his name hadn’t been enough to rouse him, so she’d walked up to where he laid in the back of the wagon and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder to shake him. Her finger tips had barely made contact before he nearly exploded out of his skin. He had moved faster than any human Charlie had ever seen, and they were in a pile on the ground before she had even realized he was lunging at her. She had smacked the back of her head hard against the packed earth as they fell, hard enough to make her see stars. Charlie was barely able to gasp out Monroe’s name as he’d pinned her down and was wrenching the hand that she’d reached out for him with back at such an angle that she was afraid he was going to break her wrist. He was on top of her, yet Charlie could tell that he didn’t really see her. His free hand went for her throat and she gave one last attempt to wake him out of this dissociated state before he accidentally killed her.

“Monroe!” She yelled as she slapped his face with her free hand.

Thankfully, that was enough. His head had shaken slightly with the force of the slap, and he snapped out of his panicked trance. Panting, he looked down and took a second to recognize Charlie beneath him. After taking another confused second to figure out what had happened, he quickly released her and rolled off of her. He staggered back a couple paces until his back hit the dropped tail gate of the wagon.

As Charlie started to cautiously sit up, he stammered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… Thought I was still dreaming.”

“Last time I try to do something nice for you.” Charlie muttered as she used her good hand to explore the goose egg on the back of her head then to cradle her sore wrist.

“Guess I should have warned you.” He dropped his eyes. “When the dreams are bad, it doesn’t go well when someone tries to wake me up. Damn near killed Miles a couple times back in the day.” Then he shrugged. “Didn’t expect that you’d try waking me. Figured you’d enjoy watching me suffer.”

Charlie just shrugged back at him. “Well, I definitely won’t do it again.”

He seemed as bewildered by the experience as she was. “I appreciate what you were trying to do.” He noticed her nursing her sore wrist. “Did I hurt you?” His voice actually sounded concerned as he took a step toward her, looking as if he wanted to inspect the injury.

Charlie instantly took a matching step back away from him. “Nothing serious.” Her voice and demeanor held a distinct wariness. “Just a little sore.”

He nodded silently and turned away from her. She watched as he went over and started poking around their smothered cook fire from the night before and started piling up some fresh wood and kindling.

“We’ve still got a couple hours, if you want to go back to sleep.” Charlie offered.

“Think I’m up for good after that.” He said resignedly. “Might as well get an early start.”

Charlie nodded and started to straighten up the back of the wagon.

They went through the same silent motions they had the previous mornings to start a cook fire, prepare some coffee and breakfast, harness the horses, and get on their way. But it all felt different this morning. Before there had been a wary hate filled tension between them that had kept them both on edge. Today Monroe seemed almost dejected. Charlie noticed the difference in the set of his shoulders and the loss of efficient purpose in each of his movements.

Charlie realized that damn, he was messed up. Something tugged at her insides with that realization, some instinct to help and save the pathetic creature before her. But this was no drowning kitten or starving puppy. This was Sebastian Monroe. He was typically the one doing the drowning and starving to others. He didn’t deserve these feelings. So she turned away from him and set her walls up against any stray emotions that she was suddenly inclined to feel for her psychopathic traveling companion. She rubbed the sore spot on her head and forced her usual feeling of malice toward him back into place. She hoped that if she forcibly ignored it, the small chink she now found in her armor of hatred toward the man would go away.

And so the silence stretched as they started out on the road again that morning. However, this time the silence seemed awkward and slightly uncomfortable. Charlie tried to ignore the feeling and focused on putting her left wrist through a range of motion to determine the exact limits of her injury. She was just thankful that it wasn’t her sword hand. She’d lost about thirty percent of her range of motion, but fortunately it already seemed less painful than earlier this morning, and she hoped it would return to full function by the end of the day.

Appraising her injuries only kept Charlie occupied for so long, and after a few miles of cautious travel, the silence was awkward again. Eventually they came to a crossroad. Monroe pulled out a map that he’d found in the dim-witted bounty hunters’ pilfered goods. He seemed to be debating between two alternative routes. One was clearly a much more direct path toward Willoughby, but since she had not revealed that to him as their destination, he had no way of knowing which way would be the better choice.

Charlie sighed. They weren’t even half way through their trip yet, and she was loathe to give up her only valuable bargaining chip. At some point she would have to decide whether to kill him or to trust him. Since she had realized that she wasn’t going to be able to kill him, she might as well give the other option a shot. Time to fish or cut bait. “Willoughby.”

“What?” He was startled out of his musings over the map.

“We’re going to Willoughby.” Charlie leaned over, found the town on the map, and pointed at it.

“Willoughby?” Monroe rolled the name around for a moment. “Why does that sound familiar?” A few seconds later he latched onto the memory. “Rachel’s parents. They lived in Willoughby. We sent a squad there when we first started looking for her and Ben.” He talked as if he didn’t even realize she was there any more. “Why didn’t I remember that?”

Charlie shrugged, fairly certain that if she said what she was thinking, “because you’re insane”, it wouldn’t have gone over well.

He scoured over the map for a minute before seeming to remember that he was not alone. He looked up from the map and straight at her. “So. Willoughby.” He seemed to understand that her telling him that meant something significant.

“Yeah.” Charlie tried to keep her face expressionless. “We’ll get there a lot faster if we take the first left.” She pointed on the map.

He studied the map for a moment. “True enough. Road looks like it should be in pretty good shape the rest of the way. Should make good time. Another seven days maybe.”

“That’s what I figured.” Charlie replied. “Roads were easy going when I left there six months ago.”

“Good to know.” He gave her a curt nod. “Then that’s how we’ll start.” He stared at the map again. “We run into any trouble, we can double back to here, and come around from the west.” He pointed out the route on the map.

Charlie nodded. He folded the map and wedged it back behind the seat. Then the reins snapped and the horses were taking the first left at a slow trot. And just like that, they had made a plan. Together.

It wasn’t a fully comfortable silence that stretched between them after that, but some of the awkward tension had eased. She was surprised that he hadn’t gloated about her giving up her family’s location. She was also pleased to see that he did not seem to be planning on how to dispose of her body now that she was no longer the only one in possession of a secret he needed to know. Not only had he not decided to see her as disposable now, but he had seemed to actually consider her input on their course. That was new for her. Most of the time, Miles had barely tolerated her interest in his planning. Occasionally toward the end he’d explained some of his tactics to her in an attempt to teach her, but never had he let her contribute to his plans. She wondered if that was Monroe’s way of thanking her for giving him the info, or if he was trying to make a gesture to lull her into a false sense of security. Or maybe he still felt awkward after what had happened earlier that morning. She sure did.

“You looking forward to getting back home?” Monroe’s voice broke her out of her musings. His tone was casual, like he was trying to make small talk.

Charlie assumed that he must have had enough of the awkward silence too. “I guess.”

“You don’t sound real excited about that.” He now sounded a little more inquisitive.

“Things were already kind of tense with everybody when I left. Not sure that coming back with you as a house guest is gonna help that much.”

A grin pulled at Monroe’s lips. “Miles, your mom, and Nora all stuck together in Mayberry… I imagine that’s keeping things… interesting.”

He didn’t know. How could he? She realized that there was some insinuation in his statement that she should probably focus on, but she couldn’t get past the pain that still welled up at the mention of her lost friend.

“Nora’s dead.”

Bass’s mouth dropped. He obviously hadn’t expected that.

Charlie could read the shock and hurt on his face. For some reason, she started to tell him the story. “It happened in the Tower. She got shot by one of those whack jobs trying to keep us out of level twelve.”

“I didn’t know.” He said softly. After a moment he added, “I liked her, what being with her did for Miles. Even once she went rebel, I still… respected… what she was capable of.”

“She really hated you.”

He shrugged acceptingly. “I’m a little surprised you haven’t blamed me for getting her killed too.”

“Nope. That one’s on someone else.”

He could hear the anger in her voice and looked over at her questioningly.

“It was before Miles got back into the Tower. It was a gut shot, and there was a chance we could have saved her if we could have gotten her to the infirmary a few floors up. But then Neville showed up, and there was only one keycard. My mom decided that turning the power back to kill you was more important than saving Nora.” She paused. “That didn’t really work out for anyone in the end.”

Charlie felt the familiar anger towards her mother rising, but quickly turned it inward on herself. Why was she spilling her guts about this to Monroe, of all people? She hadn’t talked about that night in the Tower to anyone. Now she suddenly felt like sharing her secrets with him?

She looked over, expecting to see him maniacally plotting how he could use this new information against them. Instead, he looked kind of sad. That struck home for her. While they’d been on opposite sides at the end, there had been a time when Monroe had been friends with Miles and Nora. He clearly grieved that loss. He seemed more torn up about it than anyone else that had been with her at the Tower and supposedly on the same team. Maybe that was why she’d never been able to open up to any of them about how she felt.

After a long period of somber silence, he asked, “How did Miles take it?” He seemed truly concerned.

“Hard.” Charlie said sounding almost insulted on Miles’s behalf. But then her voice dropped with the memory. “For about fifteen minutes. Then Aaron was turning on the power, that Flynn guy launched the nukes then shot himself, and mom kind of went nuts. It was pretty much all about my mom from that point on.”

Monroe scoffed. “Typical.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlie snapped at him.

He sighed. “Just… Yeah.” He took another breath, clearly planning his next words. “Wouldn’t be the first time your mother got in the way and messed up everything for Miles in his head.”

“You’re gonna have to get a bit more specific, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Charlie stared at him.

Monroe rolled his eyes. “Of course you don’t.” He took another deep, measured breath, and his tone made Charlie realize that the frustration in his previous words had not been directed at her. “Why would either of them bother to tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Monroe dropped his head and let it hang with his chin against his chest for a few breaths. “’Cause this is going to go down so well coming from me.” He muttered to himself. Then he lifted his head and gave her a somewhat pleading glance. “You’ve been around Miles and your mom when they’re together, right?”

“Yeah.” Charlie admitted a bit defensively.

“You notice anything peculiar about them?” He asked slightly hopeful.

“Like the fact that Miles seems to care an awful lot more than normal about his brother’s wife?” Charlie answered with one eyebrow raised.

“Oh thank god.” Monroe exhaled. “For a second there I thought I was gonna have to be the one to tell you.”

“So… not a new thing then?” Charlie asked cautiously.

Monroe let out a cackling rip of sardonic laughter. “Not new. Old actually. Real old.”

“How old?” Charlie was not liking where this was going.

He chuckled ruefully. “Old enough that you’re not the first one to ask the question I can see festering away in that dark corner of your mind.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.” She spat at him. There was no way he could know that she was worried that everything she knew about her life was a lie.

“Please.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s the same thing everyone from Philadelphia to Atlanta was thinking last year as soon as they saw you pick up a sword. And they didn’t know the details.”

Charlie felt her face flush scarlet. “You’re full of shit.” She shot at him. “You’re making all this up to make me not trust Miles.”

He held his hands up in a defensive posture. “Hey, I warned you last night. Don’t ask questions you aren’t ready to hear the answer to. Because I’ll tell you the truth. Like it or not.”

She glared at him. She didn’t want what he was saying to be true. But deep down, she knew he was telling the truth. There was more between Miles and her mother than her uncle had ever admitted. She knew that. She just hadn’t expected it to be this bad.

“Couldn’t help but notice you weren’t worried that I was trying to drive a wedge between you and mommy dearest.” His voice was a little smarmy.

“You my shrink now, Monroe?” She shot back.

He snickered. “Nope. Just thought there might be another subject on which we shared a bit of common ground.”

“I didn’t have a mother growing up because you kidnapped her. How’s that for common ground?” Charlie growled at him. Any good will she’d felt toward him earlier had thoroughly evaporated.

At that statement he started laughing in earnest. “Kidnapped? Rachel? Oh, that’s a good one.” Off Charlie’s confused but malevolent glare he explained, “Miles was looking for your parents. Ben had warned him about the Blackout right before it happened and he knew their research had some kind of DARPA, DOJ, Men in Black level clearance. So we assumed your dad could fix it and turn the lights back on. Which, I’m gonna point out, we were right about. Anyway, we couldn’t understand why they didn’t find us when we became… well known. We didn’t understand why they didn’t want to help turn the power back on. I mean, who looks around this shit hole and is like ‘Nah, it’s just as good without electricity.’?” He took a breath and re-focused. “One day Miles finally tracks down your family. Before he can get there, Rachel just shows up at his camp, offering to go with him. Manipulative bitch figured she could play Miles and get him to settle for her instead of his brother, then they’d all get away or something. And because Miles has always turned epicly stupid whenever Rachel is involved, he figured this was some kind of good idea.”

“You’re saying my mom chose to abandon her family?” Charlie spat disbelievingly at him. Could this huge event that had scarred her and shaped her life be just another lie? She wasn’t sure she could take it.

“She had more to her scheme than just swapping one brother’s bed for another’s.” He admitted. “She had some plan to keep us from getting the power turned back on, and her coming to Philly was part of it. Fuck all if I’ll ever understand the how or why of it.”

“You still kept her prisoner for ten years.” Charlie tried to cling to the last yarns of the fabric of her reality that were unraveling too quickly before her.

He seemed to consider this. “For a time toward the end, I did treat her like the prisoner she was. After Miles betrayed me and I didn’t know who I could trust. But before that… most of the time she was there… She and Miles played at some sick and twisted version of domestic bliss.”

Charlie stared at him, not wanting to believe it.

“She had her own state room next to his in the Capital. Miles’s “prisoner” had better accommodations than visiting dignitaries. She didn’t have to see him, no one forced anything on her. But she couldn’t stay away. She got in his head bad, twisted everything around. Constantly fighting or fucking and making him feel guilty about both. I’d send him out on campaigns just to get him away from her so he could clear his head. Damn country would have probably only been half the size it was if I hadn’t had to keep making excuses to get him out of there.”

Charlie was at a true loss for words.

“Miles may have been head over balls, stupid in love with Rachel from the moment he laid eyes on her, but she and I have… disdained… each other just about as long. Ben was like a big brother to me growing up. It’s hard to think kindly of some chick that’s cheating on someone you consider family, even if it was with my best friend. She tried to say I was a bad influence on Miles. Whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean, coming from the morally superior ice princess sleeping with her husband’s brother.”

Charlie actually chuckled at that last statement. Monroe had heard her, and she shot her hands up to cover her mouth as he focused an interested smile on her face. Had she really just laughed at Monroe mocking her mother? She had. In that moment, she had somehow found the monster that destroyed her family to be more relatable than her own flesh and blood. Could she really believe what he said? The story he told her flew in the face of everything she’d ever known. And yet, it made all the mysteries and disjointed memories of her past fit together like none of the stories anyone else had ever told her could. While she hated a lot of what he had told her, there was no denying that objectively, it made the most sense.

Monroe smiled almost wistfully. “Don’t think I’ve ever been able to bitch about Rachel to anyone before. Always had to keep the bits about the affair on the down low, which makes it hard to explain the animosity. She could do no wrong in Miles’s eyes, so any time I tried to bring it up to him, he accused me of being jealous or not understanding.” He rolled his eyes. “No one else would ever voice their thoughts about her out of fear of Miles finding out and holding it against them.”

“Well, she wasn’t winning any mother of the year awards even before all the shit you just told me.” Charlie hated to admit it, but it did feel good to have someone to commiserate with.

“I really wish we had some beers right now, because I’d drink to that.” Monroe grinned at her.

Beer would have been absolutely fantastic at that point, Charlie realized with a matching grin. They really did have more in common than she would ever want to admit. Considering that most of what she thought she knew about everyone else in her extended family had turned out to be wrong, maybe she would have to reconsider some of her preconceived notions about the man next to her.

……

 

Charlie woke up to the feeling of someone shaking her shoulder.  She stretched as she opened her eyes and took in the camp around her. “My turn already?” She yawned.

“Yup.” Monroe answered almost apologetically.

Charlie dragged herself out of the sleeping bag and then slid out of the back of the wagon. She stretched again and grabbed her canteen of water. Monroe climbed into the wagon as she took a long sip and then returned it back to the pile of her things.

“We’re pretty well shielded here, so I kept the fire going just a bit. There’s coffee warming on the coals if you want.” Monroe offered casually as he climbed into the sleeping bag she had just vacated.

“Thanks.” Charlie’s voice was only slightly cautious at the offer.

Charlie walked around their little camp, checking the perimeter and getting oriented. There were no foreign sounds and nothing appeared amiss, so Charlie made her way over to the fire. Two cups had been left near the camp kettle steaming at the edge of the small cook fire. She filled a cup and took it over to a downed log a few feet away. She sat and watched over the camp site. As she monitored for any signs of intruders, she sipped the coffee and thought.

She had been soundly asleep when Monroe had needed to wake her for her shift. That was a change. She had not slept deeply the past few nights. When traveling with Miles, they had always left someone on watch specifically to look out for Monroe or his men. Now every footstep she heard, every cracking twig or rustling leaf, was actually Monroe in her camp. It was hard to reconcile that he was the one on watch now, not the one they were watching out for. But obviously today her mind had come to terms with the idea, and had allowed her to get a good night’s sleep. Her subconscious had decided that it would trust him to watch over her tonight. That still struck Charlie as odd, but seeing as she had survived the night just fine, she really hadn’t had anything to worry about. She’d always felt safe with Miles or Nora on watch. She’d had complete confidence in their skill and their loyalty when it came to ability to protect her. She’d seen Monroe fight. There was no questioning his capabilities. She was just a bit surprised that she had been so quick to accept his claim that his allegiances included her now.

An image assaulted her thoughts and almost made her laugh out loud. She pictured Little Red Riding Hood curled up asleep in the woods with the Big Bad Wolf protectively growling and standing guard over the sleeping girl. While it was quite a departure from the story she’d been told as a kid, she figured that maybe Red and the Wolf had bonded over how crap Red’s mom had been for sending a little girl out alone into some woods that were crawling with wolves and hunters. It wasn’t any less believable than what had actually transpired between her and Monroe today.

It was the middle of her shift when she heard the now familiar rustle of blankets and gasping breathing indicating that Monroe was once again in the grip of his nightmares. Charlie’s first instinct was to go and wake him. A faint pain in her wrist and a slight throbbing at the back of her skull reminded her that she’d sworn not to make that mistake again. So she sat by the fire, about ten feet from the wagon, and watched as Monroe’s night terrors got worse and worse. Just a few nights ago she had delighted in watching him suffer. Now she felt bad.

She absent mindedly picked up an inspected a small rock from the ground next to her feet. Her mind was trying desperately to busy itself with something beside the distressed sounds coming from the wagon. Then Charlie had an idea.

Monroe startled awake, bolting into a half sitting position almost instantly. Some type of attack had broken him out of a nightmare. He looked around as the world came back into focus for him. His eyes settled on Charlie sitting calmly a safe distance away. She waved slightly, then opened her hand to show a few small rocks in her palm. He looked down and noted a half dozen similar small rocks littered around where his shoulders had stuck out of the sleeping bag. When he made eye contact with her again, she tossed one of the rocks to him. He caught it one handed and smiled at her. She shrugged and went back to poking at the fire. He brushed the little stones out of the wagon and laid back down. Sleep claimed him again quickly, and he slept the rest of the night peacefully.


End file.
